


Shedding Your Skin

by Dragon_in_a_CypressSwamp



Series: Selkie Tales [4]
Category: One Piece
Genre: Alternate Universe - Selkies, Bepo is best bear, Friendship, Gen, Medical Inaccuracies, Mood Whiplash, Non-Linear Narrative, Sad Backstories, Selkies, may occur between chapters, selkie shenanigans, they're trying their best
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-03
Updated: 2020-10-03
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:46:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,508
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26799778
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dragon_in_a_CypressSwamp/pseuds/Dragon_in_a_CypressSwamp
Summary: Selkies have to grow their cloaks before they can wear them.  The Heart Pirates, and the growing and shedding of skins through the ages.And sometimes that's a good metaphor for something else, but who wants to think about that when you could be tossing your friends into the sea?
Relationships: Bepo & Penguin & Shachi & Trafalgar D. Water Law, Bepo & Trafalgar D. Water Law, Heart Pirates & Trafalgar D. Water Law, Penguin & Shachi (One Piece)
Series: Selkie Tales [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1806724
Comments: 6
Kudos: 39





	1. Sinking Seals

**Author's Note:**

> General warnings for Law's backstory.

“Don’t chew _that_ ,” Law grumbles at the baby seal, pulling his hat away. He shoves a squeaky toy at her instead. “Chew _this_. This is chewable. My hat is not for eating. My hat was my baby skin,” he informs her seriously. “It’s waterproof and warm and mine, not yours. I won’t get another for ages. Chew your stuff, not my stuff.”

“Blah,” the little seal squirming further into his lap responds, and he quickly cups his hand around her snoot to redirect her from his hat again.

He sneaks a glance at his Mom, then uses the captured snoot to press a quick kiss to Lami’s forehead, like he’d seen his parents do. Lami paws at his hands, whiskers tickly against his fingers, so he releases her. She tries to chew on his sleeve next and Law’s brows knit together, perplexed and quickly growing frustrated.

“Your toy is right here!” he squeaks it, demonstratively. She keeps trying to chew on him instead. “Mooom! Why won’t she stop?!”

Mom chuckles. “She’s a baby, Law. Babies chew when they’re curious. She doesn’t have hands yet, you see?”

Law looks down, observing the claws and joints on the flipper pressed against his chest. It looks pretty close to being a hand to him. What did it look like on the inside, he wonders? He hums thoughtfully. This whole ‘people are seals when they’re babies before turning human’ thing is pretty cool. He wants to learn more.

“Or she’s hungry,” Mom says, and Law looks up to see her smiling in the way that said she was about to make one of those jokes Dad groans at. “And Laws look delicious!”

“No!”

.

It’s been years since Lami was a seal. She’d shed her pelt, but she hadn’t gotten a hat like Law, it’d stayed a blanket because she’d cried every time Mom took it to start measuring and pinning or whatever.

It’d laid on her hospital bed, as much a comfort as her bear even as the pain worsened and spread, until she could barely stand touch at all. She’d still held his hand, though, insisted on it. Their parents had pressed kisses in her hair every time they’d stopped by, torn in too many directions by their responsibilities to stay long, although they would come in to pass out on the folding cots in the corner.

Law had been the one to take care of her, had been her primary caretaker so their parents could focus on the cure, and then her nurse as the adults were overwhelmed, and then her primary doctor as more people fell too sick to move, died, or left to try their luck escaping or rebelling or who knows what.

At the end, there hadn’t been many people left in the hospital at all.

Law doesn’t like thinking of his sister’s fate, inescapable when she could barely walk at that point, but he can’t seem to think of anything else for long since then. His medical training gives him too much knowledge to pull from to fuel his imagination of how she died.

He thinks of her face buried in soft leather and fur to escape the smoke, and the heat of fire before it ever--

By now, his childish misunderstanding over how selkies, not humans, start their lives as shoreline animals has cleared up. He’s more aware of a lot of the distinguishing features between selkie and human. Like the way his Mom used to go out in the night to swim the canals, but his Dad never did. And it wasn’t just because one of them had to stay behind ‘in case a nightmare woke you up, and you couldn’t find us. That would be scary, right?’, but because Dad didn’t have a second skin, he wasn’t a selkie and didn’t have a whole second set of muscles to exercise.

He’s equally aware the hat on his head is the only part of his selkie heritage he’ll ever have.

Selkies molt twice, once as toddlers to take human form, and once at the end of puberty, when they reach physical maturity. The prevailing theory why, according to his parents, was because of conservation of resources: kids are already growing so much, they’d be constantly needing to grow new pelts if they had them. So it made more sense if helpless babies were less-helpless seals (or whatever), and then they stuck to just one form before growing a pelt only once they’d settled into their adult size.

Law will die before any of that.

He’ll die stuck in one shape.

There’s a breathless, boiling feeling in him when he thinks about that. A clawing-at-smoke feeling that drives him nearly to the edge of flinging himself into the ocean just to slap and claw and beg the water itself, a thread-cut-loose-to-drift-on-the-wind feeling.

He thinks of his Mom’s warm brown hair, and finding shapes in furry spots, and the way it felt to rest his cheek on her warm, sleek back to nap or read to her out of the books he’d found at the library. He thinks of how he took after his Dad, and Lami took after their Mom, everyone said so and it was kinda obvious, Law had the same black hair as Dad (turned blue-ish as Amber Lead started to leach the color)—but, but: the spots on his fluffy white fur were the same brown as his Mom’s hair, and Lami had black and brown spots, but—

But thinking about all of that hurts to the point he surely has to amputate, or the mangled heart in his chest will kill him. Like saving a life but losing a limb on an operating table. Like how he’d felt all empty but focused when he’d escaped, too many problems and stuff to do in the immediate then-and there driving everything else off to a distance until later, until there was nothing to do but listen and wait and absorb.

He’ll study Doflamingo, and the other heartless monsters on this crew. He’ll be heartless too, and he’ll take this boiling, churning mass in his chest and sharpen it to a blade he can cut the world apart with, so it’ll be out of his chest and in his hand to hurt someone other than himself with.

Law considers himself a rational, realistic person despite also feeling like he's been knocked sideways, out of alignment with everything he knew. He wants to hurt and kill the people responsible for Flevance’s fall, for Amber Lead and its coverup, but with the limited time and resources he has, the odds of hunting those powerful people down—most of them he doesn’t even know where to start looking for—is unlikely. He wants to hunt down the people who shot his parents, who shot Sister and the orphans, but they’re just a few of hundreds of soldiers who’d come from neighboring countries, or maybe even far flung countries with the World Government forces who’d run the quarantine wall.

He’s not going to find them on his own, and the price of Doflamingo’s help is adhering to the Donquixote plans, which do feature a lot of murder, but do not feature the people on Law’s personal growing hit list. The hit list is made of few names, mostly just descriptors, and in the absence of specific targets in his reach Law has to settle for hurting whatever pirate, smuggler, marine, or whoever falls in his path.

The goal of killing everyone sounds very badass and suitably evil. They'd gone along with it, after all. Nothing had gone well since his escape. These grenades hadn't come from _outstretched helping hands_.

His evil goal isn't private, and it’s not Law’s concern what anyone makes of this as long as they let him in the crew. Why he wants it is both obvious and it doesn’t bother him to say it—hiding the sins of those bastards is what they want, they want Flevance to disappear, that’s why they’re lying about Amber Lead’s spread, and Law is vengeful and it all exists. He did hide among corpses, and he is dying, and Law has found his willingness to sugarcoat anything burned away with Lami. He’s all sharp, scalding, blunt pieces and it’s a little satisfying every time Baby 5 flinches in recognition of this.

But other things are too…private. Too tangled to express or say. Or not sharp or blunt or burning, but soft and bruised or broken like limbs so it feels too…vulnerable, and he has no intention of being vulnerable. Not here, not with these jerks and monsters and heartless. He’s here for monsters, not for the ‘family’ they call themselves.

He has had a family. He has no need of more.

There’s no room in him for more, even if he wanted it. The festering wound in his chest rejects the very notion of transplants. Rage cauterizes softness. Fear fuels rage. Helplessness, powerlessness fuels fear.

_The weak do not choose how they die,_ Doflamingo says.

So there’s no logical reason to share anything personal. There’s no one to share anything personal with, as much as Baby tries to pry, or Jora tries to coddle. Or as amusing as it occasionally is to watch the others interact.

(Jora’s an old woman with presumptions. There isn’t a single resemblance to his Mom, despite her claiming her weird smothering is motherly. There isn’t a single resemblance to his Dad, either, when she bandages him and he seethes because she’s touching him way too much, it’s not professional and she’s not LISTENING, she just touches him more, hugs him and pinches his cheeks and it hurts, but she doesn’t actually care what he thinks so her annoying voice just keeps running and he wants her to go away, wants to kill her, but killing Corazon didn’t go well so he refrains, stuck seething)

(Baby 5 is just annoying, while Buffalo is even more annoying—useful as he occasionally is with his bribability, Law does not suffer idiots well. Every time Law starts thinking they’re maybe tolerable, they do something he wants to chase them off for)

So he never tells anyone.

The selkie thing, the stuck-in-one-shape thing, the way some shattered, mangled corner of his heart bleeds every time he looks out at the ocean, the way the unending bleeding leaves a hollow void that yearns but can’t ever be filled because he’s 10, 11, 12, and the big molt only happens at the end of puberty, at 17, 18, even 22 years old. That’s unimaginably ancient, when that’s nearly twice the age you’ll live.

So he never tells them anything about this hole in his chest—no, the corner of the hole in his chest, one wound of many, but one that is supposed to be filled with seawater but holds it like a stomach holds acid after a dozen lead bullets. Swimming almost isn’t worth it, when he’ll never swim properly.

(He’ll never swim like his Mom did, hidden under moonlight and streetlight, with him clinging tight to her sleek back as suddenly the shape he’d always associated with squishy pillows and silly rolling around is swift and agile)

…Besides, his parents said not to tell anyone, like the D. Water, but for reasons they explained better. People kidnap selkies, or steal their skin. They’re imagined to be pretty, like mermaids, but mermaids if you could hold their fins hostage. Law sees more of the slave trade with the Donquixote, and decides he’s not dumb enough to reveal himself to anyone, ever.

…not that it matters, with what little time he has left.

Besides all that, it’s irrelevant—the only way it impacts his life now is in how easy it is to keep the white fur of his hat clean, even when blood dries in it. It washes out easier than any other clothes he wears, because it’s waterproof.

Mom said it was ‘sort-of alive’, like the oils of his skin would keep it glossy or something even though he can’t _wear it_ , wear it. As something other than a hat, he means. Law doesn’t really remember anymore, and there are no books or journals with reliable selkie anatomy. There’s plenty with unreliable selkie ‘facts’, as he’d learned one day while his parents laughed themselves sick, but few with real information.

Weirdly enough, Sora: Warrior of the Sea was actually among the more accurate depictions. Besides the heroes and robots, its one thing he liked about it: the selkies only showed up in one arc, but it was a good arc and the selkies actually transformed right. Its probably because parts of the series are taken from real life, like the Germa 66.

But long story short, Law doesn’t tell any of the Donquixote Family about the selkie thing, even when Baby starts trying to pressure his name out of him.

“How do you keep it so clean?” the girl demands, jealous of his laundry secrets.

“…I wash it,” Law says, derisive because what else would you do??

“With what? How?! It’s so white and fluffy but I know how hard it is to get bloodstains out of white fur without damaging it!”

“With shampoo,” Law frowns, because he’d had to scrub for ages to get the dried, clotted mess out without tearing the fur out by the roots and didn’t feel like being interrogated over how he managed it, as long as it was still soft and in one piece.

Baby 5 hits him, “shampoo is for hair!”

Law decides he’s done, and sends her scurrying with a glare. He spitefully refrains from ever mentioning he also conscientiously applied conditioner, or how he’d sit with it in his lap and run his hands and wrists over it because apparently some sort of oil on his skin was supposed to be good for his skin, although he doesn’t know 100% what this applied to. Was it just the leathery bits, or the fur itself? What’s the best way to apply it? Where, exactly, does he produce this oil and how is it different from normal sweat? It couldn’t be normal sweat, right? Is it?? But sweat smelled gross, there’s bacteria growing in it, and stuff.

It’s one of a million pieces of information lost with his parents. He’d never really thought about these details, until they weren’t there to ask. Until he couldn’t just sit next to his Mom and watch her do it, holding her brushes and looking at the claws and how the webbing moved when he played with her flippers, until she wasn’t smiling tolerantly at his poking and Dad wasn’t answering his questions about skin cells and hair follicles and what claws are made of, and why they’re different from human nails, and Lami wasn’t asking if they could paint Mom’s claws rainbow colors. And now he doesn’t know why she had those brushes, or what it was that kept her cloak healthy and clean. He knows what she did, sort of. But he doesn’t know _what she did_. Where did personal grooming ritual meet practical use? Law doesn’t know.

(He doesn’t know, and has nothing to fill this gaping, bleeding void in him, doesn’t have the faintest clue what first aid would even look like, so he takes it and hides it behind his sharpness, fills around it with boiling anger like the steam will expand to fill it for him. And it does, sorta, but also doesn’t)

He’s glad of his silence, later.

Even if the fantasies of dragging Doflamingo to a watery grave with his own fangs remain only that, since he’ll never be able to swim either.

He doesn’t know what to think about that, so he doesn’t. The fruit saved his life, and is very cool, but it’d taken Cora’s life and something precious Cora never knew about. It’s complicated with no good resolution in sight, so Law leaves that alone.

Although sometimes he wonders what sort of overblown expression of shock Cora would’ve had if Law’d ever told him he wasn’t just a ‘D’, but a selkie too. He wonders if Cora would’ve called him a monster again, or if Doflamingo had some secret enmity against selkies along with people with the D in their names. Law wonders if he would’ve told him eventually, or just waited until he was shedding his human skin in preparation for the big molt.

Both possibilities would’ve been amusing, he thinks.

He also wonders if Cora would’ve gone around trying to cure his inability to swim, if he told him of the selkie thing. Thinking about whatever crazy methods he might’ve tried cheers him up a little, and he thinks about submersibles—most of the fun of swimming in the ocean, less chance of being eaten by a normal shark. Or a killer whale, as Shachi will tease while talking about these things before Bepo gets distressed at the reminder that polar bears eat seals and swears that he doesn’t eat people.

.

.

…He’d gone with his mother once, on her nighttime swim through canals. He’d insisted to the point of sneaking out the window to follow her through the edges of the streetlamp’s light, until she’d caught him trying to follow her over the edge of a bridge to the narrow strip of stone beneath it where she could slip in and out of her cloak unseen. He’d been too clumsy climbing over, and she’d caught the white of his hat and the shine of the buttons on his coat out of the corner of her eye.

She’d scolded him, but also showed him an easier way to swing under the bridge and let him swim with her for a little while. He’d worn his swim trunks, but the outer layer he’d worn was folded safe in the pockets of her thin coat, selected because it wasn’t too bulky to stretch her pelt over, so everything kept dry in that strange there-but-not space between skin and skin.

He’d asked if it felt weird, not having thought about how his Mom would have stuff between skin and pelt, and she said no, not really—not any weirder than carrying things in the pockets on his pants, or holding something in his hands or tossed over his shoulder. It could feel a little awkward if it was a weird shape, or stiff if it made the second skin stretch too much—like squeezing into a too-small, too plush winter jacket. Law had nodded in understanding and climbed on her back.

She’d carried him through the cold water that’d run off of the mountain, and he’d clung to her warmth because it was so much colder in the dark than those few times he’d gone swimming in the day, but it was also so cool—she was so fast, and the hind flippers that had seemed too tiny and ridiculous on his baby sister on land were definitely not useless, all _swish and turn_ in the water, and it was so much fun he’d ended up chattering—in a whisper, because secret midnight escapades—about all the things he was going to do once he could turn into a seal, and actually stuff they should do now, soon, because she could turn into a seal and swimming with her like that was awesome and they had to do that more and Lami and Dad should come too and they should go to the ocean, but also secret lakes up the mountain, but also what about tropical islands that showed up in comic book stories!

He whisper-chattered all the way back home, asking about seal tails and seal hind-flippers that aren't actually tails, carried on her shoulders because he was actually super tired and also cold and dripping wet and he hadn’t thought about towels or the bleh of wet socks when he was sneaking out.

It’s one of those memories he treasures a lot, sneaking around Flevance's canals by moonlight.


	2. Shachi's Revenge

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There's a difference in taking revenge against people you hate and taking revenge on your friends for petty nonsense, as Shachi would like to demonstrate.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Second chapter up today!
> 
> If you don't know what they sound like, you might want to look up adult emperor penguin calls because it's nothing like the cute chirps of the chicks. They can use two frequency bands at once and that's really neat.
> 
> Warnings for a few mentions of implied sad backstories, but this chapter is mostly just Heart Pirates being goofs. There was a reason I put 'mood whiplash' in the tags.

In all fairness, it was completely reasonable when it started. A completely, unassailably logical response to having an entire adult whale suddenly sitting on the tiny, rickety sail boat they’d been using at the time.

The three of them shoved Shachi the killer whale selkie overboard before they could sink. Or before he drowned under his own weight on their deck. Or before his flailing took out the mast.

There were a lot of good reasons he got shoved overboard.

This did not stop him from vowing revenge for being summarily shoved past the splintering railing into the freezing cold North Blue, where he then flailed about in his new body attracting sharks for hours. Possibly days, it was sorta hard to tell that far into the arctic circle.

And then instead of helping him in his time of vulnerability they just cheered him on like it was a wrestling match.

He doesn’t care how high he smacked that shark, okay, or the fact he tore that small one in half—he was scared, and cold, and pissed off by the entire world but especially his own skin that'd been confining him all week, and his terrible awful friends definitely should have done more than shout “GIVE HIM THE TAIL! _THE TAIL!_ YEAH!!”

“WHOO! PILE DRIVE THAT SHARK!!”

_“SMACK IT INTO THE ICE! THE ICE, BRO!”_

…Okay to be fair they did bring out Penguin’s spear and the couple harpoons they had lying around, and Law did use his devil fruit to lift him completely out of the water when that kraken got curious about the commotion, and the sharks didn’t taste that bad, and they did patch him up and stuff, and it was a pretty awesome first time in the water with an adult cloak, but it’s the principle of the matter. They threw him overboard!

So he’s going to throw them overboard too.

.  
.

“Hey look! No more itching!” Penguin announces, wings up.

“REVENGE!” Shachi immediately abandons breakfast to charge after the emperor penguin proudly posing in the doorway.

“NO!”

Penguin dives away, squawking in alarm, not quite managing a decent belly slide before he’s stuck flailing his flippers and webbed feet around trying to stand up again. It’s enough to foil Shachi’s initial charge as his momentum carries him straight through the doorway, but he rebounds off the railing and dives to grapple the struggling bird on their tiny deck.

Penguin shrieks, his voice echoing with the legions of those damned to watery fates…or possibly a mating call, birds were weird.

Shachi cackles even as the bird three-fourths his size continues to flail, smacking him with wings and trying to crane around to peck him. Shachi tries to get a better grip.

 _“CAPTAIN!!”_ Penguin’s voice reverberates in multiple tones, crackling on the long syllables. _“HELP! Don’t let him toss me overboard! I’m just a snack! A handsome, handsome snack! Penguins eat krill! Not sharks!”_

“You should’ve thought of that earlier!” Shachi cackles, heaving him up to his chest.

_“I’m sorry I saved the ship you stupid whale! CAPTAIN!!”_

“I’m technically a dolphin!”

_“You’re A MENACE!”_

Bepo and Law exchange a look. Bepo’s big dark eyes plead ‘why can’t we all just get along?’ Law’s asks if he really has to get involved. Bepo’s eyes widen, ever so slightly. Law rolls his eyes, but stands to follow his ridiculous subordinates up onto the deck.

He steps to loom over the two still rolling about the deck. “Oi.”

They roll into his shins before coming to a stop, a wing shoved against Shachi’s face, Shachi trapping Penguin in a bear hug. They both look up at him, Shachi mulish and Penguin pleading.

 _“AaWrk!”_ Penguin reverbs at him, webbed bird feet flailing, and Law’s half-hearted peacekeeping mission _immediately_ derails.

“How are you doing that?” he crouches next to him, hand reaching out to carefully touch his beak. “Is this why your voice has been doing that thing?” he gently turns the beak for look from a different angle, gaze sliding from beak to throat. “No, of course it’s why, but how has it been doing the thing? Can I look?”

Somewhere behind them is the ‘pofk’ sound of hand-beans meeting facial fur as Bepo facepalms.

 _“Yes, sure, whatever,”_ Penguin says quickly like the buzz of a thousand angry crows pretending to be bees, renewing his flailing. _“Just don’t let me be eaten by sharks! Or Orcas! …Or seals, either, or polar bears or—OH NO everything wants to eat me!”_

Shachi grins at him. Penguin is not reassured in the least.

“Fufufu, of course we won’t let anything eat you,” Law says, starting to smile as his hand encounters sleek feathers, pressing on firm muscle. He itches to begin a full checkup (vivisection), wanting baseline readings, but…

“Revenge,” Shachi hisses, scooting on his back towards the edge of the ship again. They do not go very fast, Law easily shifting to stand back over them, but Penguin makes a dying noise—held to Shachi’s chest, he has no leverage to divert their course.

Law raises an eyebrow. “You do need to familiarize yourself with your new body, and saltwater exposure has helped symptom management so far. Bepo, what are today’s conditions?”

Penguin groans. Shachi squeezes him like a cuddle toy, grinning with all his teeth.

“Oh, um,” Bepo shuffles, looking between them. “The weather is clear with a light breeze. I think its going to stay pretty calm today, so we’re stuck in this cove anyway…And! Um, I haven’t smelled anything big around. Um. Sorry?”

Penguin groans again, trying to convey the depths of his betrayal to the uncaring masses. Bepo wrings his paws.

Law crouches again, admiring the structure of Penguin’s new body after months where the main change was just more feathers. “You _do_ need to familiarize yourself with swimming again,” he nods at Shachi, evil grin mirroring the punch-able smirk spreading across Shachi’s face.

“Aye, Captain!” Shachi agrees eagerly.

Penguin bites the hand on his beak, Law jerking his hand back too late.

It doesn’t help, as Shachi kicks up onto his feet an uncaring whoop, heaves Penguin over his head and runs for the railing, but it is a little satisfying to startle an ‘ow’ out of Law. The little traitor.

“I’ll swim with you!” Bepo calls after them, past Shachi’s cackling, claws clicking against each other anxiously.

Penguin goes screaming and flapping into the glacier-marked cove.

He disappears with a little 'sploosh'.

Penguin almost immediately bobs back up to float at the surface.

Shachi and Penguin exchange a look. Penguin paddles his feet, bobbing gently in a slow circle in the gentle waves. Instinctively, his wings spread out for stability.

It’s adorable. It’s heartwarming. It’s deeply unsatisfying for revenge.

Despite having no lips and limited facial mobility, Penguin slowly starts to look very, very smug up at his brother in all but blood. Smugly, Penguin turns around to smack his beak against his own wing.

_“…I meant to do that.”_

“Sure,” Shachi agrees dully as Penguin pointedly sets about figuring out what this preening business is all about. How did birds manage with just a beak??

Shachi taps his nails against the railing as Law and Bepo come up next to him. They watch their friend clumsily bob around for a long minute, beak clumsily yanking his own feathers. Law watches in fascination, categorizing questions and concerns to go over during the physical later. His medical training might’ve been focused more on humanoids, but he would be a terrible doctor if he neglected to study half his crew’s physiology.

Law wasn’t the only one missing a chunk of selkie knowledge. They all only knew pieces about their own species. It was a point they could relate to Bepo on, this hodge-podge experimentation or piecing together fading memories on things their parents or grandparents could’ve just explained, but never did for one reason or another.

“Alright, screw it!” Shachi decides, jumping up onto the railing.

Penguin has a second to look up, and another second to feel dread before the sparkly lightshow engulfing the jumping Shachi lands on him.

“REVENGE!!” The orca calls before the splash engulfs the entire ship.

Dripping like a wet cat, Law glowers at the circling killer whale until a dazed Penguin finally bobs back up. He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, slowly releasing his death-grip on the railing. “Don’t kill each other while I’m gone.”

Bepo’s ear flicks, watching their already shivering Captain squelch back inside for dry clothes. As a polar bear mink he does not share this ‘hypothermia’ problem, even soaking wet, so he doesn’t bother going inside.

After a moment he decides Law will be fine and turns back towards where Shachi is messing with Penguin by making little waves to nudge him off balance in the water, achieved by circling around the boat and catching him in the wake of the water moved aside by his fins. For all his complaining, he really has gotten a lot more graceful in the water.

For his part, Penguin endeavors to peck him when he comes by, or at the very least foil his heckling by trying to flail into position to ride the surge on each pass, smug preening forgotten.

Bepo observes this for a minute, dithering, before jumping off the side of the boat as well.

Naturally, he lands exactly where he wants to be: Shachi’s back.

Penguin laughs as Shachi breaks off his heckling runs to try to buck the determined polar bear mink off his back, whistling something that can only be complaining all the while.

Law comes back outside just in time to get splashed again. He sighs, huddling deeper into the coat. “Waterproof jumpsuits were a great idea. Now if only they didn’t look ridiculous…”

.

There’s a knock.

“Law? Captain? Breakfast!”

There’s an indistinct grumble in response.

“BREAKFAST!” Shachi bangs louder, voice echoing in unfamiliar ways down the brand new corridors of their submarine. “Get out here Boss, it’s your turn to decide what we eat today!”

“Right, I’m up, I’m up, you don’t have to shout,” Law sighs through the door, only to audibly panic as Shachi takes his cue to go back. “Wait—don’t leave, open the door!”

Shachi raises an eyebrow at the door before about-facing and opening it. He squints into the unlit room, trying to make out the lump on the bed. “What’s up?”

There is a sigh from the floor, at about the same time the clicking of Shachi’s tongue reveals the lump on the bed is a pillow, not a Law. Shachi squints downward.

Law rolls upright, craning up to look at him with the most resigned expression to ever fix itself upon a seal. “I can’t reach high enough to open doors,” he admits.

“Whoa, you’re worse than Penguin,” Shachi remarks, reaching over to flick on the lights to reveal the disgruntled seal in all his spotted glory: rolling on the ground where the blankets fell off the bed. Presumably where _he_ fell off the bed.

Shachi crouches as Law struggles over to him, offering a hand to smell. “Dude, you’re as squishy a seal as you’re as twiggy a human. You know your human form could use some of that blubber too, right?”

“Ha, ha,” Law’s whiskers tickle where he decides to simply rest his chin on Shachi’s offered palm. “Very funny. But you’re right, it's ironic. Maybe my body was mis-storing it? Something to investigate later. In any case it's warm. I’ll wear it as a normal cloak or something—it should be more waterproof than anything else I have too, so maybe I won’t be wearing the jumpsuit so often…swimming or not, it’ll be useful.”

“But you know what this means, right?” Shachi leans in, grinning.

Law eyes him. “I’m stuck with limited mobility and can’t heal anyone until I work out how to re-map the Ope-Ope to my fore-flippers or turn back, whichever comes first? Ikkaku is going to laugh herself sick? I’m now delicious to everything higher on the food-web than a penguin?”

“No,” Shachi boops Law’s snout. “Well, yes, but not what I meant. You’re very cute by the way.”

“Thank you,” Law responds with dry resignation. “I’m sure my little sister would’ve been delighted, even if my reputation hinges on appearing the opposite.”

Shachi grins in crooked fondness. “I meant,” he says, hand shifting to trail down Law’s back. “that you…now get…”

In one fast motion he grabs Law and stands, heaving the long seal up over his shoulder.

“My REVENGE!” Shachi cackles as Law’s flippers waggle in protest.

“No, put me down! _Shachi!_ Quit carrying me I can move on my own _what do you mean revenge?!”_ Law flips his head upside down, partially rolling against Shachi’s chest and shoulder to shout into his ear. _“SHACHI!_ I can’t swim! I’m still a devil fruit eater, I can’t swim, I’ll sink in defiance of all this buoyant blubber its useless I’ll drown _don’t drown me you idiot you were beached on the ship what did you expect us to do?!”_

Shachi keeps cackling as he staggers down the hall, Law trying to wiggle out of his arms.

“REVENGE! REVENGE!” Shachi’s cackles precede him down the corridor, where he makes a turn into the mess hall to show off his prize. “REVENGE!!” he spins around delightedly.

“What?” Penguin looks up from where he’d tucked himself in a warm ball against Bepo’s side where they sit on the long table. “Oh! Law’s cloak finished growing in! You know what this means?!”

“Fish for breakfast!” Bepo cheers.

“We can go back to bed?” Ikkaku lethargically high-fives Clione where they’ve slumped across the long table. Uni had given up and laid down on the bench, only raising his head to blink blearily at the commotion.

Shachi quits spinning Law around to exchange baffled looks with his old friends. Bepo tentatively answers. “Ikkaku. It is…almost noon?”

“How can you tell?!”

“I’m sorry. It feels like a ‘noon’.”

“Why do we all have to cook breakfast together anyway?” Moray pipes up from where he’d been leaning against the wall next to a couple portholes. He seemed significantly more awake at least, although that might be a function of how he’d _already_ styled his hair. 

Ikkaku, whose own hair was a wild curly mess that would take more effort to tame than she wanted to exert before having breakfast, glared at him. As if sensing the source of her ire, the man flicks out a comb to tease the strands back into its obnoxious pompadour and flashes a grin.

Stupid dolphins with stupid misleading names and stupid greasy hair. Thinking they’re hot shit with their _ooh, I’m a dolphin, I’m friendly, I’m a former gangster, I’ve memorized every major pirate flag from the past century because I think pirates are the coolest, please take me along I love sailing, and also I’ll go insane if I remain in the home my brother and his sweetheart killed themselves in, please rescue me from myself._

“Not that I’m complaining,” Moray tacks on, “baking is cool—but what are we all going to do? Oh, and congrats Captain,” he flashes a thumbs up.

“Thanks,” Law the seal replies from where Shachi is still holding him over his shoulder like a particularly wiggly sack of potatoes. “I’m glad my chances of a scratching-introduced infection have dropped back to normal levels. But what do you mean, why are we all here?”

The four original Heart Pirates exchange a look, mystified. It was clear they hadn’t thought this part out.

“Uh…I guess it’s just tradition?” Bepo glances anxiously at where Law is trying to contort around to actually observe the room in a way that isn’t upside down. Shachi holds him tighter, reluctant to relinquish his prize despite the conversational sidetrack.

“Yeah,” Shachi nods. “I can cook, but I hate doing it alone, so Penguin always helped, and Bepo always wanted to hang out but his fur gets everywhere so we’d give him gloves and set him to dishes, while Captain likes anything to do with carving up meat.”

“I think you mean ‘dissection’,” Penguin pokes the seal, testing the squish.

“Its good anatomy practice,” Law defends, flipper coming down on Shachi’s head. “It’s one of the ways my Dad taught me. It’s still edible. Besides, with all the different fish and animals we see it’s interesting.”

“Hey, we weren’t judging, Captain.”

“I was judging a little bit that time when you sewed together those—“ Bepo starts before Shachi and Penguin both make loud noises to drown him out.

“We were trying to forget that!”

_“We don’t talk about the Franken-meat incidents!”_

“Oh. Right. I’m sorry,” Bepo droops as Law tries to hide his embarrassed expression behind Shachi’s hat.

“…I thought it was cool…” Law mutters with the dejected awareness he was the only one.

Uni slowly pushes himself upright to join Clione, Ikkaku, and Moray in staring at them. Ikkaku mouths ‘incidents’, drawing out the ‘s’, expression conflicted.

“Uh…I know we haven’t been crewmates for long, and a lot of that involved building the Polar Tang together, or going off to gather supplies, so we haven’t had the joy of cramming into the same living space together much yet,” Ikkaku sounds out, “but what the fuck are you—“

“AAAAND NONE OF THIS IS WHAT I MEANT!” Shachi shouts out and jiggles Law again, who looks at him reproachfully. “I meant: REVENGE! The final day of reckoning is upon us!”

“Now I’m even more alarmed and confused,” Uni comments, with agreement from the others.

“Um, Shachi,” Bepo catches on, “I don’t think Law can magically swim so—“

“No, no,” Penguin waves Bepo’s objections down, an evil grin starting to spread, “Shachi has a point.”

“No,” Law scowls, starting to flail again like he’s trying to swim his way down Shachi’s back, “You are not—“

“Revenge!!” Shachi chants. “Revenge!”

“…I’m lost,” Moray admits, looking to Ikkaku, who shrugs. She doesn’t know either.

“What are today’s conditions, Bepo, wonderful navigator that you are?” Penguin asks, seconds away from cackling like a comic book villain.

_“I’ll drown regardless of conditions!”_

“Oh, um…there’s a storm coming later today I think, but the chop isn’t too bad yet, and I didn’t see any signs of big predators on the sonar when I left Cuttlefish on watch but we could check again,” Bepo wilts under the combined force of Law’s glare and the vengeful joy on Penguin and Shachi’s faces. “I’m sorry…”

“Whoo! Then it’s time to swim!” Penguin declares, patting Bepo on the back.

“…Are we…mutinying? Why are we mutinying he’s been cool?” Moray asks.

“It’s the _first day,”_ Clione emphasizes. “You’re mutinying on the first day, after living together how long?”

“Put me down!”

“It’s not mutiny,” Shachi corrects. “It’s brotherly vengeance for past wrongdoing!”

“We’ll fish him back out immediately,” Penguin assures. “Shachi’s just hell-bent on tossing us into the Blue after our cloaks finish growing in since we had to do that to him.”

“Shachi was _sinking the ship, _and you were FINE!” Law snaps as he nearly rolls himself free before Shachi pulls him back against his shoulder.__

__“I fail to see how this matters, since you’ll also be fine,” Penguin points out, following along as Shachi begins a march to the railing. Law slaps Shachi’s back ineffectually, and the others trail behind._ _

__“So…no breakfast this morning?” Clione exchanges shrugs with Ikkaku._ _

__“We eat after we swim,” Bepo assures them authoritatively. “Everyone knows that!”_ _

__“Bepo!” Shachi calls back, “I’m sending you in the water to grab him, and we’ll toss you a line!”_ _

__“Aye-aye!” Bepo salutes sunnily, only to wilt again as Law turns an annoyed expression on him._ _

__“Oi! Don’t bully the bear,” Penguin covers the scary eyes with his hand. “It’s too cold for the rest of us to save you!”_ _

__Law seriously debates biting this hand. But no, biting it would involve stitches and possibly reattaching Penguin’s fingers before breakfast, and would only encourage dunking him in the water. “You wouldn’t have to rescue me if you _don’t try to drown me!”__ _

__Penguin switches tracks, shifting his hand to rest on Law’s head, grin losing its evil. “Hey, are you actually scared? You don’t have to be—as long as we’re around, we’re never gonna let you drown. You’re safe with us, Law.”_ _

__Shachi squeezes him extra tight, cheek pressing against furry flank. “Yeah! Actually hurting you would ruin the revenge. Hey, have you decided what you want for breakfast? We gotta celebrate since you’re an adult now!”_ _

__“If you seriously think you can distract me with a bit of friendship talk and thoughts of what comes after you fish me out of the Blue—“ Law grits out, lips pulling back from fangs._ _

__Bepo gasps. “That’s right! Law!! You’re an adult by selkie standards now! All three of you are! We definitely have to celebrate!”_ _

__Law takes a deep breath. “Well I would appreciate if celebrations didn’t start with drowning me!”_ _

___“Revenge!”_ Shachi jiggles Law until a flipper smacks his shoulder. “I need no reasons!”_ _

__“This would be terribly ironic, _if I cared,”_ Law smacks his shoulder again. “Shachi, put me down right now or—“_ _

__“HEY WHEN DO MINKS BECOME ADULTS?!” Penguin shouts to drown him out, earning a venomous look from Law he ignores._ _

__“Or you’ll—“_ _

__“Ah, that’s right! Us selkie are adults when our pelts finish coming in, and humans become adults in their late teens, early twenties, but what about the Mink Tribe, Bepo?” Ikkaku speaks up from where the rest of the crew has been hanging back from this trainwreck. Cuttlefish had at some point joined them, attracted by the noise from where they’d been on watch._ _

__Law actually pauses his threats to listen to the answer, although his snarl remains, now aimed at Ikkaku._ _

__“Oh! In the Mink Tribe…!” Bepo perks up excitedly, always happy when his actual species is acknowledged._ _

__There is an extended pause._ _

__“On Zou…!”_ _

__They wait expectantly for one of these sentences to be completed._ _

__Bepo comes to a stop, dropping to the floor in despair. “I can’t remember. I have no idea how Mink become adults to the rest of the tribe. I don’t know if it’s just something that gradually happens with numbers like humans, or if we have to do something like those ice people we met,” he covers his face with his paws. “I don’t even know if all our fur falls out and we have to regrow it like you guys!! What if it’s something about the Moons I’ve forgotten?!”_ _

__“Controlling that ‘were-bear’ form of yours would certainly be a feat…” Law muses as Penguin and Shachi turn around to pat Bepo’s shoulders. Bepo groans._ _

__“Hey, hey…if it makes you feel any better,” Penguin offers, “We’re basically family, right? And we’re all older than you, and we’re adults by our standards.”_ _

__“Uh-huh,” Bepo agrees damply, peeking through his paws._ _

__“So how about at some point, the three of us will decide you’re a mature adult,” Penguin offers a reassuring smile, “And then we toss you into the Blue like the rest of us have? Our own little family tradition.”_ _

__Bepo’s eyes glisten wetly, lower lip trembling. “Would you?”_ _

__“Of course!” Penguin scratches between Bepo’s ears, smiling as he ignores Law groaning behind him. Bepo turns to Shachi and Law._ _

__Shachi gives a thumbs up. Law covers his face with a flipper and groans, not looking at the cuteness._ _

__He will not give in. He will not accept this outcome. He will—_ _

__“FINE! It’s a thing! But you guys have to pull me out immediately and I have demands!”_ _

___“Thank you!”_ Bepo wails, burying himself into Penguin’s chest._ _

__“Whyyyyyy…” Law flops limply as Shachi goes in for a group hug, awkwardly squishing Law’s flexible back against Bepo’s shoulder blade. He sighs, bending backwards to rest the top of his head against Penguin’s knuckles where he’s still petting Bepo’s ears. Penguin gently extracts his hand as Law grumbles. “…You know your physicals suggest you’re in mid-to-late puberty, suggesting you’ll be sexually mature soon anyway, right? Cultural traditions don’t stop that. So when we get to Zou you will be an adult, and can choose if there’s some missed tradition you want to make up for or not.”_ _

__“…I think that’s Law-speak for saying we get to decide when you’re an adult,” Shachi stage whispers._ _

__“No, it’s ‘Law speak’ for nobody gets to say you aren’t an adult once you’ve reached—“ Law tosses up his flippers as he sees Penguin’s wide, upside-down grin. “Which you understood fine, you jerks are messing with me. I thought we were having a moment here?!”_ _

__“We are,” Penguin agrees as Bepo retracts from the hug. The two give him space to stand back up, and Law debates bending backwards until Shachi drops him against the metal floor or allowing himself to continue being carried to his doom like an unruly pet._ _

__Law decides faceplanting on the metal grate would only add indignity to his recapture, because there was no way he was escaping back into the bowels of the ship on these flippers. He’d be lucky to make it three meters before Penguin or Shachi sat on him._ _

__Law reluctantly flips himself semi-upright and drapes himself over Shachi’s shoulder like a pouting cat. Like a pouting cat made of blubber._ _

__At least he wasn’t going to freeze this time. The North Blue was home, and remaining so far north made it easier to avoid Doflamingo’s network, but the entire Blue was stupidly cold all year round, and only got colder the closer to the North Pole they got. Law stood by his decision of going to the farthest northern reaches to finish the Tang, but it did have its inconveniences._ _

__“Oh look! We’re here!” Shachi points at the big door to the lower deck. “Man this ship is big!”_ _

__“Not really,” Moray pipes up from the back, “This is nothing compared to the Marine battleships, but compared to the little skiff you were using when we met this is a big step up.”_ _

__Law tenses as Shachi begins to run to the railing. “Wait, let Bepo get in the water first—!”_ _

__Law shrieks as he goes over, hitting an octave he hasn’t hit since his voice started changing. Bepo dives in right after him._ _

__“It helps if you hold your breath!” Penguin shouts over the side after the splash. He turns to Shachi. “Satisfied?”_ _

__“Oh yeah,” Shachi chuckles. “Worth the wait. And whatever weird things he does in revenge for the revenge.”_ _

__“He’s going to cut your head off to look at your ears again. Your orca ears,” Penguin comments as Bepo surfaces, Law in his arms._ _

__“I was thinking he’ll just have me helping him while he’s stuck as a seal,” Shachi suggests, tossing the line. “He was late to breakfast because he couldn’t open the door to his room.”_ _

__“Really?!” Penguin grins again, delighted at the mental image of seal!Law glaring at the door. “That’s hilarious.”_ _

__“Not that you would’ve faired any better if we had more than one door,” Shachi digs as the pair of them begin to haul._ _

__“I’ll have you know I’ve nearly worked out the trick of it on our hatches, thank you,” Penguin responds primly._ _

__Law flops out of Bepo’s arms back into the water. Both of them freeze as Bepo panics, lets go of the line, and dives again._ _

__“Did Law just…”_ _

__“Did that little bastard just deliberately throw himself back in the water?” Shachi finishes, hurriedly hauling the line back in to re-toss it as soon as they surfaced. “Yes, yes he did. That contrary little—“_ _

__“…Bepo hasn’t surfaced yet,” Penguin notes after what could be a second, or could be an eternity._ _

___“Nope,”_ Shachi decides, dropping the line and diving in, glowing as his hat flows around him into his cloak._ _

__Beneath the waves meanwhile, Law has made a fascinating discovery. A discovery that requires immediate investigation._ _

__He can move._ _

__He still feels the drain of the ocean, but it’s…faint. Held at a distance. No worse than opening a Room, or standing in water that comes up over his boots. Like the warning tingles of nearby seastone, or the heat of nearby fire._ _

__But it isn’t burning, isn’t draining. Isn't crushing him or pulling at the edges of him. Not yet._ _

__Like he’s not actually touching it, despite very obviously touching it._ _

__Like something is diverting it. Or blocking it._ _

__He moves his flippers, maintaining neutral buoyancy with minimal effort, and exchanges a stunned look with a paddling Bepo._ _

__He’d forgotten what it was like to float. He’s only sunk for so long…he almost doesn’t know what to do now, flippers feeling strange._ _

__Beneath them, the ocean is dark and deep._ _

__Above, the sunlight makes strange patterns across the waves._ _

__In relaxed state, his nose is closed—something that’d felt vaguely annoying on land, but is certainly convenient and natural now, as slow movements of flippers scoop water._ _

__The moment is shattered of course as Shachi splashes in and Law is snatched in the only _relatively_ gentle teeth of a bull orca and rocketed into the air so fast Shachi jumps out of the water to do it. Uni and Ikkaku try to catch him and end up bowled over by screaming wet seal for their trouble._ _

__Law shakes it off first, turning to stare back at where Penguin, Clione, and Moray are re-tossing the line to Bepo and Shachi. His nose re-opens and closes, taking a deep breath. He double checks he has all his limbs. He does._ _

__“…Selkie cloaks are waterproof,” Law says as that entire concept takes on a new shape in his mind. “Even like this, they’re waterproof enough for a barrier…!”_ _

__Ikkaku groans, shoving ineffectually at his hip. “Captain…!”_ _

__Law looks down, blinking at his subordinates. “Oh. Are you alright?” He rolls off them and prods with his flippers, checking the damage._ _

__“Ow,” Uni deadpans, lying flat and watching the sky._ _

__“…I could have lived without knowing firsthand why only monsters mess with killer whales,” Ikkaku complains, curling in on herself. “Ow, ballistic seals…how are you not hurt?!”_ _

__“…Practice,” Law deadpans. “But Shachi isn’t scary, don’t say things that’ll only give him a big head. I can beat him up as seal or human, so don’t go thinking he’s just naturally the best fighter in the Blue or something. He has to practice and so do you.”_ _

__“…uh-huh, like you clearly fought him off five minutes ago?” Ikkaku asks skeptically as flippers continue to prod around her ball of pain._ _

__Law doesn’t blush, but his head somehow does retract into his shoulders as he scowls, like a ball of squishy blubber, _“I’ll get better at it!”__ _

___“LAW WHAT THE HELL!!”_ Shachi announces his arrival back on deck with a shout. Water drips off the ‘unfolded’ pelt hanging down his back as he stomps over to the seal leaning over the two downed crewmen._ _

__“Be more careful,” Law chides, not looking up from his prodding. “If I’d been someone else, you could’ve snapped my neck with how you tossed me. Your teeth are not toys,” he rolls on his side in demonstration, showing a row of gashes that hadn’t quite gone through the blubber._ _

__Shachi recoils, eyes widening. “…Law what the f—“_ _

__“Captain!” Ikkaku finally notices, appalled. “Why are you ignoring it?!”_ _

__“Because I don’t have bandages and you could’ve bashed your skull in from how hard you hit the deck,” Law switches to Uni. “You didn’t, by the way. But I want you to ice those bruises. Uni, how many…flippers am I holding up?”_ _

__“…One, and I don’t think that question is going to work, Captain,” Uni eyes him the second before Penguin and Shachi jump the seal with gauze pulled from (waterproof) pockets lining the ridiculous suits._ _

__Uni is fully aware that someday, Clione and Moray are going to bully him into joining the dorks in wearing the dry suit, boiler suit things. But he has not fallen that far into the realm of dorks yet. The lure of insulated, waterproof pockets is great when sailing the North Blue, but they look ridiculous. Must…resist…for the cool…_ _

__“Why are you like this?!” Shachi asks as he and Penguin roll the seal, looking for more tooth gashes. They ignore the disgruntled flailing._ _

__“Oi! I was—Bepo, finish running Uni through a concussion test, Uni don’t move until I check your spine and ribs—guys I’m fine, those are scratches, the potential head wounds and spinal injury are priority here!” Law doesn’t actively resist the bandages, but bared teeth and the slap of a flipper to Shachi’s hip make his disapproval known. Uni gives a brief wave, signaling his understanding in his quiet way without intruding on the budding argument._ _

__Pocket disinfectant is slathered on, gauze is pressed to bite marks, bandages are rolled to apply pressure, and Shachi bites his lip as nothing else appears except blood mixed in seawater._ _

__There exists tiny crossroads in life, every single day._ _

__Shachi flings himself across Law’s back, clinging tight. “I’m sorry--I wasn’t really angry anymore please don’t drown yourself Captain!”_ _

__“How many fingers?” Bepo asks Uni._ _

__“Three.”_ _

__“I wasn’t—“ Law starts._ _

__“I’m sorry I mutinied—or jokingly mutinied—it was just a joke I didn’t mean to hurt anyone I’m sorry I didn’t listen but what the fuck, Law, don’t drown yourself! What was that?! Don’t do that!”_ _

__“Oh good,” Bepo says, trying for bright and hitting anxious instead, eyes glancing towards the drama. “Um, what’s today?”_ _

__“I have no idea, the sun hasn’t set in a week or something,” Uni deadpans, pointedly not watching the drama despite the seal hind-flippers flapping against his leg as Law is rolled around, “But according to you it feels like noon-ish.”_ _

__Ikkaku gingerly sits up, rubbing her breastbone and eyeing the puddle of blood-tinged seawater splashed around them. “And who’s the current king of Lvneel?”_ _

__“No clue, never been there, don’t matter to me,” Uni deadpans once again. “The botany’s cool but I’ve heard the serfdom is worse than usual so they can kiss my ass.”_ _

__“Good enough for me,” Ikkaku decides. “Damn, that hit like a cannon.”_ _

__Cuttlefish, who’d been hovering to the side this entire time, sighs in relief. “I really should do Law’s first aid training, huh?”_ _

__“Yeah, it’s not awful,” Ikkaku says as the seal in question tries to pat the back of the man who might be hugging him while also shaking him._ _

__“Law’s a good teacher!” Bepo assures, mostly turned to the seal pile with the sort of tense expression of someone debating turning it into a bear hug. He continues to drip onto the deck, apparently totally unphased from the faint wind driving the arctic summer even colder. He does not appear to consider that he’ll soak Shachi and Penguin if he hugs them._ _

__“…I’m a pirate now,” Uni says, in the tones of one realizing something that should have been obvious but somehow never quite put together before. He is still staring at the sky with the focus of a man avoiding drama that is still getting his knees wet. He was told to stay still by Law, so he might as well stay still. “Do you think we could do a raid on Lvneel’s cool botanical gardens? I just need a few clippings for the hydroponics bed…Noland brought back some cool stuff for a liar but Lvneel is stingy with it…”_ _

__“Um,” Bepo looks from friend to friend, tapping his claws together._ _

__“Probably?” Ikkaku shrugs a shoulder. “There’s someone I want to hit too…”_ _

__Yes, there exist many tiny crossroads in life. They sneak up on you, too. Such that you don’t realize they’re upon you until you’re in the moment, or in retrospect._ _

__“I love you!” Shachi angrily tells him. And because there are many tiny, winding crossroads in life, he bites back the reflexive deflection, bites back the teasing, and bites back the things that struggle to go past his lips that might make it feel easier, but wouldn’t be truth. “You’re a good Captain! You’re a good doctor! You’re a good friend! I’m sorry I bit you, I just panicked! Please don’t throw yourself into the Blue, that was—that was really scary!”_ _

__And the thing about crossroads in life, the big thing is—it’s the little crossroads, the daily ones, that define you more than any large, dramatic ones. Where it counts._ _

__And because Law knows this, deep in his bones, he takes a deep, calming breath. He lets it settle in his chest, and out from his twitching nose. He gently places a flipper on Shachi’s shoulder._ _

__“Okay,” he accepts. “I love you too. I’m sorry you were scared when you were stuck in your other form. I don’t know what else we could’ve done, though. I’m not angry at you tossing me overboard anymore, I’m glad you did it, and I’m not trying to kill myself—I’m sorry, I should’ve explained first, in retrospect jumping straight back in was a bad idea and of course it was misconstrued. If you hadn’t tossed me in I might not have learned my pelt is apparently waterproof enough to keep the sea from immobilizing me. I can swim. I was just testing it. _I can float.”__ _

__Law says this last bit in the distracted tones of someone picking apart a new phenomenon, but not actually believing it’s a thing. It hasn’t sunk in yet, and it makes no sense so it has to be picked apart until it makes sense again, and stands up to rigorous testing._ _

__It has to be jumped on before it floats away like a trick of the mind. Lunged after with zero hesitation because good things can’t just be trusted to stick around._ _

__“Soo…you’re not as much of an anchor you could’ve been, everyone’s friends again, no one was concussed by seal torpedoes, and we can have breakfast now, right?” Cuttlefish summarizes._ _

__“Yeah,” Law agrees, flipping upright again, “after I check Uni—“_ _

__Penguin makes a distressed noise and catches the seal before Law can flop out of his and Shachi’s lap back to Uni’s side._ _

__“Wha—oh, I’m sorry I scared you too—“_ _

__“Not that!” Penguin says, struggling to hold him in an awkward position. “Although that is nice, and I wasn’t really angry either—you’re going to get your bandages wet!”_ _

__Automatically, they look to the deck where Law was about to bounce forward to. Where he was about to put the entire length of his torso, because seals have no other option._ _

__There’s a puddle of cold seawater, tinged with red from Law’s own blood._ _

__“…Ah,” Law says. “Shachi?”_ _

__“Yes Captain? Sorry Captain?” Shachi cringes as the extent of the new problem unfolds in his mind._ _

__“I want you to know that I love you and I’m not mad at you for trying to save my life,” Law says in the even tone of someone who is at least annoyed but trying to ignore that. “But this is your fault and you are going to take responsibility by carrying me around so all this bouncing doesn’t tear open your bites on unsterilized metal soaked in seawater—and you’re all wet, aren’t you?” He turns to observe flatly, looking from Shachi to his bandages._ _

__Shachi looks down at where the cold seawater continues to slowly slide off of him. The uniform things are doing their job well, so he’s not even cold, and nothing in his many pockets is the slightest bit damp—which is why he could grab the bandages—but he had needed to turn back in the water. He hadn’t perfected the trick of jumping and turning back to grab a line or the railing yet, not like Penguin, and he was still banned from jumping directly onto the deck after that time he didn’t turn back fast enough and knocked the air from his lungs, leaving him stunned and beached on his own ship. And the time he landed on Penguin and did give him a concussion. And the time he narrowly missed landing, as an orca, on all three of them because he was startled by seaweed touching him like a curious baby kraken trying to drag him down to teeth on or possibly accidentally drown because krakens seemed pretty smart for sea monsters but babies are dumb._ _

__And also Krakens eat whales. It’s probably why they target ships, considering half the time they ignore people otherwise. Probably._ _

__Shachi really, really needed to get better at the ‘getting out of the cloak’ thing._ _

__Cuttlefish mutely holds out a towel they’d grabbed at some point._ _

__“Sorry, Captain,” Shachi repeats, frowning at the water on his suit._ _

__“I’ll—oh, er,” Bepo notices he’s still dripping too. Cuttlefish again mutely holds out a towel._ _

__“I’ve gotcha,” Penguin assures them, awkwardly crab-shuffling closer to Uni with the long, blubbery seal in his arms. Law looks back at him, hind flippers curling up in a move that just feels right. He clearly elects to ignore any lurking embarrassment and sets to prodding Uni._ _

__“…Am I gonna live, doc?” Uni deadpans._ _

__“You’re going to die,” Law deadpans back, lips quirking up. “But not today. Sit up carefully, and tell me if anything hurts.”_ _

__“Everything,” Uni deadpans again, rubbing his head and grimacing at the bloody water. Law reaches out to feel again, nearly unbalancing both himself and Penguin before the other man rights them with a squawk._ _

__“Not broken, not concussed, not bleeding,” Law checks out, frowning. “Oh—not bleeding badly. Going to be a colorful bruise down your back and ribs, but your training is starting to pay off—congratulations, you survived a seal cannon with only bruises. Go get cleaned up—Shachi, watch him and bandage that cut—its weird though, what did you hit—“_ _

__“Your claws, I think.”_ _

__Law blinks, thinking back to the moment of flailing. “…oh. That would explain it, yes. Sorry. We’ll reconvene in the kitchen for breakfast.”_ _

__“Finally!”_ _

__“Okay, but seriously, why do all of us have to be awake and help with breakfast?” Ikkaku jumps on like this is the issue that’s been bothering her the whole time._ _

__“Because I’m used to leading a small group, didn't think about it, and we can discuss future scheduling and logistics over breakfast,” Law says firmly._ _

___“You’re so squishy,”_ Penguin mutters under his breath._ _

__“I know, right?!” Shachi slaps Penguin on the shoulder._ _

__“Huh?”_ _

__“Law is so squishy,” Shachi repeats for those without super hearing. Law wonders again how he got to this point. _“So squishy.”__ _

__“I wasn’t going to say anything,” Ikkaku comments, limping along. “But Captain does make a cute seal. Sorry about your manly pride,” she grins, clearly not really sympathetic._ _

__Law rolls his eyes. “Whatever. It hardly matters for my reputation since you’re the only ones who’ll know.”_ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The logical progression of the Jaya Arc scene where Luffy wears a diving suit made of barrels, and of that one fishman in the fishman island arc. Or at least that's my excuse, and I'm sticking to it


End file.
